SI traceable algorithm for characterizing hyperspectral infrared sounder CrIS noise.

The Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Satellite (S-NPP) is a Fourier transform spectrometer and provides the sensor data record (SDR) that can be used to retrieve atmospheric temperature and water vapor profiles and can also be directly assimilated in numerical weather prediction models. The noise equivalent differential radiance (NEdN) is part of CrIS SDR products and represents the amount of random noise in the interferometer data. It is a crucial parameter that affects the accuracy of retrieval and satellite radiance assimilation. In this study, we used the international system of units (SI) traceable method Allan deviation to estimate the CrIS NEdN because the internal calibration target (ICT) radiance was slowly varying with time. Compared to the current standard deviation method, this study shows that the NEdN calculated from Allan deviation is converged to a stable value when a number of samples or the average window size is set to 510. Thus, Allan deviation can result in CrIS NEdN SI traceable noise. An optimal averaging window size is 30 if the NEdN is calculated from the standard deviation.